2^nd April 2010

No school on this day, did nothing much. In the afternoon, the china friend, Yuming came to our dorm as Shiyi and I wanted to interview her for our IS reports. Didn’t manage to get a full answer but got a little information about what I was going to do. Had a long chat with her and get to know some of her background. According to her, she lives very far from Wuhan hence she seldom returns to her hometown. Also, she mention about the culture back in her hometown. Most of her relatives live in the same village. From this, we can see that the relationship between each relative is very close. Unlike what is in Singapore, most of them stay a distance from each other and seldom meet each other, only meet each other during special occasions. Besides that she also mentions about parents favor sons. I thought that in the modern era, this mindset had faded away, however it still exist. Maybe this only exists in the rural area. She also said that we will not see a girl’s name inside a family tree or genealogy unless she is willing to pay for it. But she didn’t pay for it as she thinks that there is no need to do that. Another shocking thing is that the names of female grandchildren’s name will not appear at their grandparent’s grave. I was shocked to know that because in Malaysia regardless of your gender, your name will still appear. After knowing I feel lucky to live in a country where gender is not an issue and I’m glad that my parents treat everyone in the family fairly. For me I think that both male and female should be treated fairly sometimes, as girls are part of the family too. It feels like you did not exist at all and also feels like you did not contribute to the family at all.